''Imagine if you could travel back in time, to a time long before the dawn of civilization and humanity had ever existed, when the world was not the dominion of the mammals like dogs, deer, elephants, whales and apes, but instead was dominated by warm blooded reptiles of different shapes and sizes, with the most iconic dynasty of this era being the great and mighty dinosaurs''
Chapter 1: Extraordinary Reptiles
New Mexico, Late Triassic, Norian, 216 million years ago
The Triassic was a very bizarre time period when life had recovered from a brutal mass extinction event which had left the survivors with the opportunity to evolve into all different kinds of truly bizarre and spectacular lineages, with the reptiles being the most successful group of animals in this ancient hothouse climate.
There is one great example of the diversity of exotic oddities from this ancient time, in the arid wetlands that will eventually become the chinle formation, which has been able to preserve so many different species, like the small theropod dinosaur known as Coelophysis bauri, a nimble and opportunistic predator that is the most common and well known type of dinosaur from the ecosystem, they are believed to have lived in packs like modern coyotes and jackals.
Right now, a family of these small predators are relaxing by the river, drinking water and sleeping under the conifer trees, while nearby are various other kinds of exotic wildlife, like Eucoelophysis baldwini, a quadrupedal reptile that is a close cousin of dinosaurs who feeds on insects with its keratinous beak, and a large herbivore that is known as Placerias hesternus, who is a distant relative of mammals from the ancient lineage known as the dicynodonts.
However, the most spectacular creature at the river is a herd of armored herbivores with impressive lateral spikes, known as Desmatosuchus spurensis, who are distant relatives of modern crocodilians, and are the largest of the group known as the aetosaurs, who were the most successful type of large herbivore across the late triassic, with their kind having been found all across north america, europe, africa, south america and india, as all the continents at the time were fused into one giant supercontinent called pangea, allowing animals to travel across the globe much more easily than in they could in the present day.
These heavily armored beasts have come to the river to drink the cool and refreshing water, although they are rather cautious, for there are dangerous predators that are lurking in the river, like Smilosuchus gregorii, the largest and most powerful predator of the arid wetlands, who might resemble a giant crocodile in appearance and ecological niche, but was actually a completely unrelated type of reptile called a phytosaur, being an example of convergent evolution instead.
Ironically, while the Smilosuchus are lurking in the river and resting on the river banks, an actual close cousin of the crocodylomorphs is hiding in the dense forest undergrowth, waiting for the right moment to strike an ambush, it is known as Postosuchus kirkpatricki, a member of the rauisuchids lineage, who were among the most bizarre and exotic predators of the late triassic, who looked like a cross between a theropod dinosaur and a crocodylomorph in appearance.
The Postosuchus ignores the Desmatosuchus however, as it would rather go after easier and less dangerous prey, like Coelophysis, whose only defense against the large rauisuchid is to run away in time before it is too late, but the Postosuchus has the element of surprise on his side, allowing it to sneak up on them.
Then all of a sudden, the Postosuchus charges at the Coelophysis pack at full force, with the Coelophysis scattering in all directions in a panic, which startles the other animals at the river like the timid Eucoelophysis, all while the Postosuchus quickly catches one of the Coelophysis in his jaws, biting down on the small theropod dinosaur right in the throat, severing the jugular veins, causing the Coelophysis to bleed to death, it having stood no chance against such a fearsome predator.
After the Postosuchus drags his meal somewhere else to feast on, everything returns to back to normal with the other animals having calmed down and going right back to their daily routines, with the exception of the Coelophysis pack, who have ran off far away from the river, returning to the shade of the conifer forest.
It is here where the Coelophysis spend most of their life, as the shade from the trees keeps them cool, and there are plenty of small animals lurking in the dense undergrowth for them to hunt, like the tiny Hesperosuchus agilis, a primitive member of the crocodylomorph family tree that fed on insects, while itself was the easy prey for larger reptiles like Coelophysis, who enjoy hunting these small crocodylomorphs and feasting on their delicious meat.
While three members of the pack continue hunting, the alpha female Coelophysis heads back to her nest, where the alpha male is busy taking care of their clutch of over twenty four eggs, watching out for egg thieves while sitting on the eggs to incubate them, the mother Coelophysis signals to the father that his turn is over and that it is now her turn to take care of the nest, so the father Coelophysis heads off to hunt for food while the mother tends to her eggs.
Life in the triassic was filled with all kinds of truly spectacular oddities, like Drepanosaurus unguicaudatus for example, a bizarre type of arboreal reptile that most closely resembled a cross between a tamandua and a chameleon with a bird like head and a grasping prehensile tail with an extra claw on the end, formed from fused and heavily modified vertebrae, Drepanosaurus was one of the most extraordinary creatures from the triassic period.
The alpha male Coelophysis is amazed by the sight of such a weird creature like Drepanosaurus, feeling a strong sense of awe and spectacle from seeing this unusual creature right up in the trees, watching it climb through the tree branches, and then proceed to look for insect grub inside of the tree bark, using its pair of hooked claws to first gently tap on the bark to determine the location of cavities left by the insect grub, and upon finding a cavity that is filled with insect grub it uses those hooked claws to tear through into the tree bark to gain access to the feast, the Drepanosaurus then shoots out its bird like head snatch up the insect grub.
Needing to eat as well, the Coelophysis returns to his hunt for an ideal meal in the conifer forest, it soon manages to find another, larger type of insectivore in the form of an Eucoelophysis, who is blissfully unaware of the Coelophysis watching it, ready for the perfect moment to strike and kill his unsuspecting prey.
Hiding in the ferns, the Coelophysis stalks its prey while trying to be as quiet as possible, moving in closer and closer so it can be ready for to pounce upon his nimble target, and then, in a matter of a few mere seconds, it bursts out of the ferns and pounces on top of the hapless Eucoelophysis, as the two tumble across the forest floor, and the Coelophysis bites down on one of the back legs of the Eucoelophysis, but it kicks him off and tries to run away in an attempt to escape, but the theropod dinosaur quickly chases after it, leading them straight into a river stream in the forest, with the Eucoelophysis exhausted and suffering from blood loss.
Then all of a sudden, before the Coelophysis can strike the killing blow, a giant amphibian bursts out of the water and grabs the hapless Eucoelophysis in its powerful jaws, quickly swallowing it down whole in a matter of seconds, much to the shock of the Coelophysis, who can only do now is angrily squawk at it and run away.
The giant amphibian is known as Anaschisma browni, it is from the ancient group of amphibians called the temnospondyls, who have been on the earth before the first reptiles, fulfilling the same ecological niche that crocodilians now occupy in modern times, they were a very successful lineage of deadly predators.
With his kill stolen from him, the Coelophysis must find a different type of prey to hunt in order to satisfy his hunger, luckily in the same river stream, there are plenty of exotic fish for him to snatch and eat, with the most bizarre of them being a primitive, freshwater shark called Xenacanthus moorei, a very successful and long lived genus of shark that has been around before the mesozoic era, and has been a delicious food source for all kinds of predators ever since it first appeared.
Quickly grabbing the Xenacanthus from the river and killing it by slicing into its body, the male Coelophysis has finally gotten a delicious meal to eat, and leaves to return to the nest once he has filled his stomach with meat in order to reunite with his fellow pack members and make sure everything is alright.
Back at the nest, the alpha female Coelophysis is busy sitting on her eggs, which she can start to feel are about to hatch soon, much to her delight as she gets off the nest and observes closely to see them hatch, ready to help her babies break out of the eggshells if it is necessary for them to escape.
Thankfully the other pack members and the alpha male have returned, having filled with stomachs with food, and the alpha male comes to his mate to see their children hatching out of the nest, with nineteen babies having hatched out their eggshells, although sadly five more of them died before they could hatch, so the mother and father eat the unborn babies to prevent them from rotting any further and attracting predators to the location.
The baby Coelophysis are already able to hunt insects and other invertebrates on their own, which is an important advantage in this arid and hostile world, especially during the dry season when food will be scarce, so the Coelophysis will have to be resourceful and opportunistic in order to survive.
Five weeks later
The end of the wet season is drawing near, and with it with come the dry season, which is an especially brutal time in this triassic ecosystem, due to the intensely arid climate, which dinosaurs can barely stand living in, but the pseudosuchians like Postosuchus and Desmatosuchus are able to thrive in this arid hothouse.
Right now, Postosuchus is once again out on the hunt for a good meal, using his nose to sniff out the scent of a herd of Desmatosuchus, he begins to move quietly to where their scent is coming from, hiding in the ferns, he soon finds the Desmatosuchus herd, with a subadult straggler with an injured back leg, which is the perfect target for the Postosuchus to hunt and kill, so he quietly moves in and waits for the right moment to attack and kill the subadult.
Once the rest of the herd has abandoned the subadult to its fate, the Postosuchus pounces and strikes a nasty blow, biting into the already injured leg and causing gallons of blood to gush out, the Postosuchus then rams his head right into the side of the Desmatosuchus to flip it over and bite down on its throat hard.
As the blood soaks into the ground, the Postosuchus starts to eat the carcass of the Desmatosuchus, ripping into the belly to devour the soft organs and flesh of the aetosaur with much delight, the rauisuchids were among the most successful predators of the triassic period, having mastered the theropod like body plan quite long before actual large theropod dinosaurs existed, while theropod dinosaurs during this point in time were mostly just small and nimble creatures.
Meanwhile, the Coelophysis are at the local river, where they are drinking water while it is still the wet season when the river is not yet dried up, however in the local river, there are dangerous predators lurking in the water, like the giant amphibian Anaschisma, who has a taste for the meat of small theropod dinosaurs.
The Anaschisma waits patiently in the water, it is ready to gobble up some of the juvenile Coelophysis, who are busy playing at the edge of the river, and are curious about the environment around them, with one of them hopping across floating logs and sticks in the river stream, who is then followed by two of its siblings.
This is very bad news, as the Anaschisma has took notice of the juvenile Coelophysis, and quietly swims over to them, heading right to one of the unsuspecting baby dinosaurs, and quickly snatches it while trying to be as quietly as possibly while the others are not looking so it can snatch more of them as easy meals.
However, upon gobbling up the second juvenile Coelophysis, the other one see it happening and quickly tries to run away, only for the Anaschisma to quickly lunge and grab ahold of the hapless baby with its jaws and devour it with ease, but unfortunately this alerts the other Coelophysis on the river bank of its presence.
The Coelophysis quickly head away from the river to somewhere else that is safe from dangerous, aquatic predators like Anaschisma, while the giant amphibian heads back into the water, where it finds a Xenacanthus that it swims after and gobbles down on, which helps completely satisfy its gluttonous hunger.
One month later
It is the beginning of the dry season, and already has the rivers started to dry up, which is beginning to put some stress on the wildlife, but this problem is something that most animals of the region can solve with relative ease, like the Desmatosuchus for example, who waste no time digging for plant roots and tubers that are right underneath the arid dirt, using their shovel like snouts to dig into the soil in search of the roots and tubers, much like modern pigs do with their snouts.
Meanwhile, the Postosuchus is busy protecting his territory, keeping watch for any intruders in the region, he spots a rival male Postosuchus from the distance that is invading his territory, which is something that makes him very angry and so he heads straight toward the intruder to warn him to back off and leave.
Upon meeting face to face with the intruder, the Postosuchus growls ferociously at the other Postosuchus, warning him to get out or else there will be a fight, but the intruder does not listen, and instead just growls back in a disrespectful tone, which provokes the two Postosuchus into a fight for the right to the territory.
The fight starts off with the two bellowing at each other, trying their best to resolve the conflict without using actual violence and instead with the loudest and fiercest display of vocal signals, which ends with the intruder being scared off from the territory successfully with the two Postosuchus remaining unscathed as a result.
Running off to the river, the other Postosuchus tries to find something to hunt and eat, for it is hungry, and it spots a potential target in an Anaschisma that at the muddy bank, which he quickly runs toward to attack and kill for food, but this kind of prey is far from an easy lunch like Coelophysis would be.
For not only is Anaschisma itself a nasty opponent, with jaws filled with sharp teeth, there is another, much larger predator that is lurking in the water, something much more dangerous than both Anaschisma and Postosuchus, as a Smilosuchus quickly bursts out of the river to kill the Anaschisma with ease.
This upsets the Postosuchus, who is angry that his kill was stolen, and tries to attack the Smilosuchus to take the Anaschisma carcass away from it, but the larger predator responds with a counterattack by biting into the left leg of the Postosuchus, causing it intense pain and bleed profusely, the Postosuchus runs off in complete and utter disgrace, while Smilosuchus begins to feast on its meal, tearing apart chunks of the flesh of the Anaschisma and swallowing them down whole.
The Coelophysis are also busy in their own territory in the conifer forest, as food and water are now becoming scarce, they will have to be more resourceful and opportunistic than during the wet season, all while always keeping watch for the deadly predators that lurk in this primordial triassic wilderness.
Lurking in the forest, the resident Postosuchus has found their territory, and he is ready for to hunt the Coelophysis, knowing that they are easy prey for the large predator to catch and kill, with the only advantage that Coelophysis have against the Postosuchus is speed, they are the easiest kind of substantial meal to kill.
In a matter of just a few seconds, the Postosuchus launches his ambush, charging straight to the Coelophysis, who are too late to react to the Postosuchus sudden attack and try to run off as fast as possible from the deadly predator, but unfortunately, the alpha female Coelophysis ends up getting grabbed the jaws of this deadly predator, who then bites down on her head, instantly killing her, leaving the Coelophysis without an alpha female in their pack and the babies without a mother.
Five months later
Life has turned for the worst for the Coelophysis, for not only do they have no future without an alpha female to help lead them and bring new offspring, the dry season itself has been a truly brutal time for these small predators, with water being scarce and most prey animals hiding to avoid the intense heat.
However, their suffering will end in a few more weeks, as the dry season is almost over and the wet season will return bring life to this arid landscape, so the small dinosaurs just need to find some way to make it through until then, fortunately, Coelophysis is an opportunist that will do anything to survive in this world.
In their desperate search for food, the Coelophysis come across a Placerias, which is unfortunate news for the Coelophysis, as the Placerias are very dangerous animals when angry, and this one individual is in a bad mood, charging straight at the Coelophysis to scare them off.
Meanwhile, hiding in the ferns, the resident Postosuchus lurking by, having been drawn to the sounds of the Coelophysis and Placerias, and he is preparing to take down and kill the Placerias for his meal, who is now using its tusks to strip bark off a tree, all while the Coelophysis watch from the distance.
The Postosuchus attacks by striking at the neck, but the Placerias fends off the Postosuchus with its sharp tusks, but the Postosuchus quickly gets away from the tusks of the Placerias, and then bites right into the right forelimb of the Placerias, causing it intense pain as blood spills out of the wound profusely.
While the Postosuchus and Placerias duke it out, the Coelophysis watch in the shadows, not knowing that they are witnessing a reflection of the future of their own kind through the Postosuchus, a powerful, bipedal predator that is built for butchering large herbivores, just like the large theropod dinosaurs of the jurassic and cretaceous, Postosuchus and its kind, the rauisuchids, were the first apex predators to ever utilize this special type of bipedal body plan.
As the Placerias falls down from shock caused by the nasty bite on its right forelimb, the Postosuchus goes for the throat, ripping it out with his jaws and severing the arteries and windpipe, causing the Placerias to die in a matter of seconds, once it is all over, the Postosuchus begins to feast upon his freshly killed meal.
Now the Coelophysis just need to wait for the Postosuchus to fill his stomach and leave so they can feed on the remains of the carcass, which is rather similar to what happens today with tigers and golden jackals, commensalism is a key strategy for small, opportunistic dinosaurs like Coelophysis in this arid hothouse world.
Once the Postosuchus has left upon finishing his meal, the Coelophysis pack head over to feast on the leftovers, which provides enough meat for the whole pack to consume for quite a while, they will continue to gorge on this delicious and nutritious banquet until there is nothing left but bones in the dirt.
Three weeks later
It has been over six months, and now, the storm clouds have gathered to pour rain over the dried up land, signaling the arrival of the wet season once again to bring much needed relief to the wildlife, and filling up the rivers with tons of fresh, clean water to allow life in this arid ecosystem to flourish and prosper.
As the river flows with water, the Coelophysis head over to drink fresh and clean water for the first time in a long while, along with several other animals in the arid wetland, like a herd of Desmatosuchus, and the Postosuchus, and even a few Hesperosuchus, of which one gets caught and eaten by a female Coelophysis who has become the new alpha female of the pack, while in the river is an Anaschisma swimming with joy, and a few Smilosuchus basking at the river bank.
The reign of pseudosuchians will not last forever, as once the supercontinent of pangea splits apart, a mass extinction will wipe out the exotic fauna like the aetosaurs and rauisuchids, while the world will become much more humid and cooler, allowing the dinosaurs with the opportunity to finally rise up and take over the world.
''Next time, we enter the dawn of the jurassic period, when the age of the dinosaurs has truly begun, and the theropods have become bigger and badder than ever before, for with the extinction of the rauisuchids like Postosuchus, a new killer has arrived, Dilophosaurus, a fearsome dinosaur with dual crests like a dragon.''